Table Top Racing: World Tour – Nitro Edition: The Tables Have Turned

Gameplay

Since there is no “story mode” or “campaign” to speak of in Table Top Racing: World Tour, I’ll go straight into the gameplay.

Table Top Racing is an arcade racer in which you battle it out in miniature replicas of real cars. The tracks, to which there are 32 in total with 8 themes, range from a garage, a construction yard and even a Yo!Sushi sponsored track. All of which feel unique and varied.

There are 16 mini machines to choose from, spread across 3 separate leagues:

• Cult Classics: which has your Beetle’s, Mini’s, pickup truck and even a nod to Breaking Bad!
• Street Racers: this league has your more serious tuners. Like a Nissan Skyline, a Range Rover and even Ken Block’s own drift beast!
• Supercars: now this is the big boys division. Here you’ll find Ferrari, Aston Martin and even Bugatti.

Of course the vehicles themselves aren’t licensed per say. But who cares when they have such amusing names such as Fauxrari and Baguetti

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It’s this sense of humour peppered throughout the game that really made me chuckle.

In terms of gameplay you get a lot of bang for your buck. There is a whole heap of races scattered across 4 cups and challenge races using all 3 vehicle classes.

Each vehicle has to be purchased and upgraded in order to stay ahead of the pack. This injects a much needed grind into what could’ve been a very brief experience.

There is multiplayer here in the form of:

• 2 Player Split-Screen – Off and Online
• 8 Player Online

In the 4-5 hours I’ve put in (so far) I didn’t experience any glitches or slowdown which was great.

Controls

Controls felt very tight and responded well. You can use Joy-Con or Pro Controller for this one.

It uses HD Rumble very liberally, but don’t sweat, this can be turned off from the options menu.

A and B are accelerate and brake respectively whilst ZR fires your weapons.

Weapons are probably the only negative I can find with Table Top Racing. They are just very generic. You’re given the mainstays like rockets, bombs and homing missile etc.

Though they don’t feel very impactful to use. Also they don’t really slow down your rivals all that much.

Even the more unique ones like EMP and Ice Block seem to just fizzle out. Later on you do unlock a feature in which you can upgrade each weapon by simply driving over another pickup. Though I struggled to notice a huge improvement.

It’s a shame as everything else in the game is designed well and plays better. Yet the whole combat system seems a little tacked on. Who knows, hopefully it can be patched later on to beef up the weapon system.

Graphics

Everything looks very crisp and smooth in both docked and handheld modes. Table Top Racing has a very colourful and cartoonish  aesthetic, from the track design, right down to the caricature style vehicles with their big wheels.

Even the Yo!Sushi themed circuits are strikingly accurate. Complete with sushi bowl obstacles, waving cats and menus strewn across the road.

It all runs at a steady clip too. Whilst I’m not an expert in this department I’d say it runs at 60fps, even with a full grid of racers.

Sound

By far one of the game’s standout features. The music comes courtesy of Juice Recordings. Providing some catchy 80’s/90’s style retro funk and pop songs. You really do get a street racer vibe from them and they fit the game very well.

Each of the cars have some pretty realistic engine sounds. Especially once you unlock some of the bigger motors.

The weapons all sound unique enough to differentiate them, even though as mentioned before, none of them sound empowering.

Value

Playrise Digital and Greenlight Games claim there’s over 25 hours of gameplay and I can very much believe it too. At first glance there didn’t look like there was much to the game, but oh boy I’m glad I was wrong.

There is over 180 races with a plethora of race types i.e, time trial, combat, hot lap, drift and many more.

The challenges are where the bulk of the grind resides. Unlike the various cups you can play through, where you can essentially make do with the one car. The challenges require you to meet a strict criteria i.e a certain vehicle, specific weapons etc.

Of course this will require you to save up lots of money for the required vehicles and upgrades.

Coming in at a rather hefty £24.99/$29.99 some may be scared off by the price. Though after witnessing the shear wealth of content on offer here it would be hard to quibble with the price. Especially as there are many games out there that offer far less content for twice the price.

Verdict

I’ve tried to avoid any comparisons with the Micro Machines franchise for as long as I could but playing Table Top Racing just brought it all back to me.

Whether this is what the developers were getting at remains to be seen. Either way it’s a riot to play and I enjoyed every minute of it.

Highly Recommended

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Reviewed by Micramanic on the Nintendo Switch. Game provided by Greenlight Games.